My Cooey M71 .308 Before and After

bill c68

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So what do you think?

BEFORE
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AFTER
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CLOSE UP
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Glued and screwed a crack in the wood, bedded the action, floated the bbl, shortened and installed Limbsaver pad, lightened the trigger (not enough yet) and painted the wood with bed liner. Topped her off with an Elite 3200 3-9X40
I have yet to touch the metal, I think for now, I will give it a light steel wool treatment and cold blue over the bare spots and maybe do it right down the road.
I had the girl listed in teh EE but no takers, so yesterday, I decide to go to her.

This was my first attempt at bedding and using bed liner, I was quite happy and surpised with the results. I took the lazy way out with the floating, I simply laid 3 or 4 layers of masking tape in the bbl channel before bedding.
 
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I just died a little inside. that poor wood :(

It was a Cooey, believe me, the wood was poor to begin with. I mean it was a fine piece of walnut but nothing special and was cracked. No big loss believe me!

Coltfan Strip it down, and shoot the metal with a nice quality flat black finish.....and send it off to the EE again.....it will sell.............
Might just be a keeper now, besides, with the bedding job, hitting the metal with any coating will likely make it too tight to fit, I already have to tap it IN and out.
 
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Put a few more touches on it. Touched up some worn blueing and painted the trigger guard with bedliner. I also got the trigger down to a reasonable weight, still a bit heavier than my Tikkas but not bad.
I am pretty excited about it now!!! can't wait to shoot it.

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I think I liked the wood better, it now looks like a cheap savage plastic stock. I do know better mind you and bet she will shoot great. I just think you should have stripped the wood and refinished it. A nice antique walnut stain would have set her off nicely. But its your gun , not mine, and now you dont have to worry so much about scratches etc. 6 of one, and a half dozen of the other.
 
I think I liked the wood better, it now looks like a cheap savage plastic stock. I do know better mind you and bet she will shoot great. I just think you should have stripped the wood and refinished it. A nice antique walnut stain would have set her off nicely. But its your gun , not mine, and now you dont have to worry so much about scratches etc. 6 of one, and a half dozen of the other.

I thought about it, but again, this one involved a deck screw in the repair, so hard to hid (not impossible) under stain and with the plain stock, I wanted some kind of grip.
The nice thing about doing this job is it gives me the experience I needed to go out an buy a beat to ####, broken stocked rifle (with good bore) and fix it up.
 
I think it looks great. Good work on the very consistent finish with the bed liner. Just the right amount of texture for my liking. I'd say this stock is a hell of a lot better than a cheap Savage synthetic. It won't flex like the savage plastic, and the fact he has bedded the action there is another advantage.

So, what kind of bed liner, and how was it applied?
 
So, what kind of bed liner, and how was it applied?

Duplicolour spray bomb from Can Tire. I had never used it before, It was very simple to apply, I primed it first but probably didn't have to, then simply sprayed it with short bursts nice and even like. Then applied another 3 or 4 coats about 5 minutes apart, the stuff dries really fast! Mind you it takes some time to fully cure, there is a small spot where the finish actually slid around, I may touch it up.
 
Nice work! Looks very good to me. I am thinking of doing the same thing with my 870 express, the wood on it is all beat to hell.

I actually used the same bedliner spray bomb to paint the racks on my ATV this past winter. It work out really well, and it gives them a little texture.
 
Well Bill, you did a good job, no one can deny that and the old Cooey certainly does have a cool factor to it! But take a look at mine!

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It too had that pukey brown stain on it, but underneath it turned out there was a really nice grain just aching to come out! The angle shots show the grain better the straight on shot was solely for the scope for another thread. :cheers:
 
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BTW, its 4 in the mag and if you hold them down and slide the bolt forward you can put one in the chamber. Or you will chamber and be left with 3.
 
That one is nice, I probably would have worked with the wood if it wasn't for the crack in teh forend. Even that could have probably been fixed cosmetically but I am one of those guys that when I decide to do something, I just do it and at the time, I didn't have the "stuff" to fix the crack properly.

I haven't even fired this thing yet, I am hoping to do it today. My buddy promised me a few boxes of ammo for it so I have been putting off going out to buy a box.
 
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